Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang confirms Chinese government has withheld approval for H200 chip imports.

Nvidia has not received any orders from Chinese customers for its H200 AI chips as Beijing continues to deliberate on whether to permit imports of the American company's components. CEO Jensen Huang recently revealed this status while speaking to reporters in Taipei, expressing his hopes that the Chinese government would approve the sale. "I'm hoping that the Chinese government would allow Nvidia to sell the H200," Huang stated. "It's up to the Chinese government now but they are still deciding, and we are waiting patiently." During his recent trip to China, Huang met with both customers and government officials, though no new orders for the H200 chips were placed during his visit.

Recent developments suggest that Beijing is moving closer to a decision on the matter. Chinese officials have recently informed the country's largest technology companies, including Alibaba, that they can prepare orders for the chips. This communication indicates that Beijing is approaching a formal approval of imports for components that are essential to powering artificial intelligence applications. Huang emphasized the suitability of the H200 for the Chinese market, describing the chip as "very good" for Chinese customers and noting that his clients would very much like to have access to it. He also confirmed that the US license for the H200 is currently being finalized, and the chip has in principle received approval from the United States to be sold to China.

However, the potential sale has drawn significant criticism. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei has emerged as a harsh critic of Nvidia selling powerful AI chips to China, comparing it to selling nuclear weapons to North Korea. In an interview with Bloomberg Editor-in-Chief John Micklethwait, Amodei stated that permitting these chip sales would constitute a major error in judgment: "It would be a big mistake to ship these chips. I think this is crazy. It's a bit like selling nuclear weapons to North Korea." The controversy stems from recent policy shifts under President Donald Trump's administration, which has moved to ease restrictions on advanced AI chip exports to China, representing a substantial departure from previous policy approaches designed to prevent China and its military from accessing American technology for AI development purposes. The policy change marks a significant victory for Nvidia, which has argued that maintaining the export ban would simply drive China to develop domestic alternatives to American chips.